Saturday, May 26, 2007

Dillon with John in rehab unit at MD Anderson

Anna here again. Believe it or not, someone from MD Anderson's IT group is on the case of getting John's email up--thanks to Sharron Rush--who called and called....and they even came on a holiday weekend!!! We'll cross our fingers and blow on them--and then wait a day or 2 to see if the magic worked.

Dillon is now on the scene, and John and Dillon--with the help of wonderful occupational therapist Kathy--walked to the elevator yesterday and went to basement floor where there is a sweet "Beauty/Barber Shop" (free) for patients. John's rather thick beard (thanks to steroids) and fuzzy hair growth were trimmed and then they all came back up to our third floor room in the Rehabilitation Unit.

After spending most of Friday getting Dillon x-rayed to explore his limp (not serious it turns out), I did errands with Dillon and then brought Dillon to hospital to see John. I zipped back to Austin this a.m. while Jay Byrd drove the other way to take care of John and Dillon. We cross back tomorrow afternoon. John and Jay reported this evening that John's room has been moved to a bigger space, presumably to accomodate John't technology cords(external drive for music, speakers, computer, digital recorder, phone cord, my computer, etc.), Dillon, chair made into bed, visitors, etc. We just seem to take up a lot of space--mostly psychic I think. But all the nurses in this unit LOVE Dillon. Apparently Dillon spent most of the day at the nursing station and managed to visit every single room of the 29 rooms in the 2 rehab "pods". What a celebrity. I am catching up on work and errands. Followed neurologist's orders to get Alpha Lipoic acid and Brewer's yeast to help John's neuropathy while he was getting a follow up acupuncture treatment in the hospital.

We are so happy that the neurology team told us that John's tests are all clear, pending one cytology study of spinal fluid--(but it looks good on the preliminary report) which means we are not dealing with cancer, but the effects of chemotherapy and steroids--which is what we believed all along. Not necessarily 100% wonderful--but more manageable than more leukemia at this point.

What does this mean? John will be at MDA another 10 days probably to do more rehab of all kinds--He is dealing with "autonomic neuropathy" which impairs his body's ability to do things like adjust blood pressure when he stands up. John is already improving. A couple weeks ago, he really couldn't stand up for more than a few minutes on his own. Now he regularly walks in the room and outside of the room too.

More later. We love you guys. Thanks for all of your support. Love, Anna and John